it takes at least 4-5 years to become a profitable trader.
I Took a Couple Years Off of Work to Swing Trade. Here’s What Happened
31–37 of 37 posts
Re: I Took a Couple Years Off of Work to Swing Trade. Here’s What Happened
#32> A few years into swing trading, and I can say I learned a lot. I’ve made more than I’ve lost. I’m up about 16% ROI year to date. The article was published December 15th 2017, so he made 16% since January 1st. If he had bought the S&P500 on January 1st 2017 (2276.98) and sold on December 15th (2675.81) he'd be up > 17.5% (and who knows how much he paid in commissions).
If he had bought in Jan 2018 what would happen to him today? Index funds are a sound idea when the market is pumping but remember if we really were going into a recession, which we are not as the market is fine, you would have a chance to lose your job which in turn would cause you to sell your index fund investments to maintain your lifestyle, which in turn would be taking a significant loss. Something like a lazy portfolio would help in this scenario where you have money in bonds/stocks and ladder GIC's to be able to buy the dip.
I prefer options and it seems the write of the article is fairly new to trading, excepting to do great in 2-years is like being a neurosurgeon in 2-years, really challenging. The market has its way to chew and spit people out, there is so much to learn from money management, to risk tolerance, to finding a working edge. It takes decades to find something consistent.
Winning in the markets is the toughest profession out there so you have to work at it, but you also have to have capital to work at it. It's hard to turn $5k into $30K, but turning $100K into $150K is much easier.
Re: I Took a Couple Years Off of Work to Swing Trade. Here’s What Happened
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
What’s swing trading ? Is that like day trading where you try to buy low and sell high on small fluctuations ?
It's like day trading, in that _it's total nonsense._ Reading tea leaves of patterns in charts of 'cup and handle', 'double top', 'flags and pennants' is what your gut tells you. It's astrology, dowsing, EVP -- our brains' amazing ability finding patterns in noise. Once in a while, someone lucks out, or at least enough to turn it into a proselytizing grift. Y'know, like writing and selling a few thousand copies of an…
The quoted passage is textbook rationalizing.
The clipped sentences, the defensive clauses "Being frugal", "was one option", "as a business teacher" and the rest of the article, all point to a man who wasted a chunk of his life in a rabbit hole and refuses to admit it.
At some point, justifying becomes gibbering. The author has reached it.
Re: I Took a Couple Years Off of Work to Swing Trade. Here’s What Happened
#34it takes at least 4-5 years to become a profitable trader. 1-2 years is nothing. just to learn the mechanics it will take couple of years.
This exactly. It's like starting a business, more so, a bootstrapped business. You have to make sacrifices to achieve your goal. You probably would need to spend 16-18 hours a day testing all the different ways you can find your edge. It's a never ending cycle as well, so once it starts to work, you have to keep refining it. The first few years are pretty challenging but when it pays, it pays. Many businesses fail, similarly, many traders fail as well.
Re: I Took a Couple Years Off of Work to Swing Trade. Here’s What Happened
#35I've done some trading (2010-2014 was probably when I did the most) and played poker full time, among other things. Profitable at both. The only problem is that's it's tough on your mental health, stress levels, and while it's easy enough to be profitable (my education was in economics which is a great background for both activities), it's tough to be more profitable than a decent full-time job while also growing your bankroll if you start with a modest amount. I probably could have kept it up if I lived somewhere with a very low cost of living or was willing to give up my lifestyle, but in the end I decided the stress wasn't worth it.
Re: I Took a Couple Years Off of Work to Swing Trade. Here’s What Happened
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
What’s swing trading ? Is that like day trading where you try to buy low and sell high on small fluctuations ?
It's like day trading, in that _it's total nonsense._ Reading tea leaves of patterns in charts of 'cup and handle', 'double top', 'flags and pennants' is what your gut tells you. It's astrology, dowsing, EVP -- our brains' amazing ability finding patterns in noise. Once in a while, someone lucks out, or at least enough to turn it into a proselytizing grift. Y'know, like writing and selling a few thousand copies of an…
> succumbs to the lure of magical get-rich-quick thinking!
When it works, it works. Is it gambling? Probably no more so than ISOs.
https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/80e7x2/the_... (/r/wallstreetbets | The Big Long - Made $2.5 million in January off $100k options investment)
Re: I Took a Couple Years Off of Work to Swing Trade. Here’s What Happened
#37I read an analysis of technical trading that demonstrated that the theoretical best return is buy-and-hold in a bull market, and only do technical trading in a down market. [1] http://www.philosophicaleconomics.com/2016/01/gtt/
It's bullshit. There's no reliable way to time the market. Horoscopes would be just as accurate as predicting recessions as pseudo-intellectual articles like this.
You don't need to time the market though. People act as if traders go all in on every stock purchase betting everything. That's not how it works.